Steven Soderbergh

[swo17]

Has he ever talked about wanting to do a horror movie?

He just made one

[flyonthewall2983]

I blanked on that one.

[whaleallright]

I'm surprised nobody posted this here. TLDR: Brian De Palma makes an unsolicited dig at Steven Soderbergh, saying

“Steven Soderbergh, a visual director? Are you kidding?” De Palma said. “Give me an example of a great, visually memorable scene [from] Soderbergh or a silent sequence based on the staging…I saw an episode of ‘The Knick’ and there is nothing that [impressed me visually].”

I admire both directors, but I have to say this reflects poorly on De Palma (whose career effectively cratered around the same time Soderbergh's really took off, for what it's worth). Reading into his comments a bit, I'm inclined to think that De Palma (never, to say the least, the subtlest of directors) seems to mistake the sort of bravura effects for which he's known (dolly-zooms, split-focus shots, overhead shots, Steadicam marathons, etc.) with "visually memorable" cinema.

[domino harvey]

We discussed it in the De Palma thread

[diamonds]

That "powerhouse" cast for The Laundromat has been revealed: Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, and David Schwimmer. Netflix to finance and distribute.

[domino harvey]

Why is "powerhouse" in quotes?

[diamonds]

That's the word they had used to describe it before. Didn't mean to imply otherwise haha.

[domino harvey]

Soderbergh's media journal for 2018

[mfunk9786]

Steven Soderbergh was on Bill Simmons' podcast on Monday and they spoke for over an hour about a number of topics. Simmons still has the same 80s and 90s points of reference that are tiresome to listen to, but he does a pretty good job of conducting an interview here. He and Soderbergh discuss distribution models at length, and I found one point particularly compelling - when he stated that by Friday at noon after he saw early numbers for Logan Lucky and Unsane, he wanted to essentially beg to be allowed to just drop each film on streaming and be done with it instead of letting them die on the vine in theaters. It doesn't sound like he's going to go down that road for a third time.

Also, when asked what film in the last several years he is the "most jealous of," he responded with Under the Skin, which is a very Soderberghian answer considering some of the fourth wall breaking that goes on in the production and execution of that film. Stated that Glazer has made three perfect films, and that Birth is "as close to a Stanley Kubrick film" as we've gotten since his death.

I still struggle with Under the Skin to some degree but I cannot argue with Soderbergh on much of that.

Oh, and "for the first time in I don't know how long," he doesn't know what he's doing next. Has a few options, but has no idea what's coming after The Laundromat.

[chiendent]

He also mentioned almost being brought in last-minute on a big project that instead ended up getting delayed a year or so but obviously couldn't say what it was. I know this kind of stuff must happen all the time but I'm pretty curious.

[mfunk9786]

Yes, that's a key detail, thanks for the reminder!

Another tidbit that has me wondering: Apparently he showed the [then] final cut one of his films to a director friend, and the director pulled him aside and said that he must scrap and redo the score. Despite there being very little time to do so, he took the advice. Wonder which one that was?

[The Narrator Returns]

Cliff Martinez was doing the score for Out of Sight so close to its release that he's credited on the poster, so I imagine it's that. Either that or The Good German, which had a David Holmes score that was replaced by Thomas Newman's.

[The Narrator Returns]

Listening to the podcast now, and it's almost certainly The Good German for how Soderbergh talks about it having no commercial prospects.

[DarkImbecile]

Steven Soderbergh Surprised His Drunken Oscar Speech Is the Academy’s New Gold Standard

[flyonthewall2983]

Watched The Limey for the first time in awhile. The whole veneer of boomer regret feels more or as prescient now. The lamentation may be towards Wilson's daughter, but in a larger respect it feels like one towards how "they blew it" for themselves and future generations too.

[The Narrator Returns]

Soderbergh's next next movie is a 1950s heist movie called Kill Switch, with Don Cheadle, Josh Brolin, and Sebastian Stan

[hearthesilence]

A 20th anniversary screening of The Limey will take place at Lincoln Center on Thu., Dec. 19, at 7:30pm

They will screen the brand new 4K restoration followed by a Q&A with Steven Soderbergh, Luis Guzmán, Lesley Ann Warren, and editor Sarah Flack.

[whaleallright]

why do we use the word "restoration" for every new DCP of an older 35mm film? what qualifies this as a "restoration"? what was missing or lacking that has been "restored"?

not trying to pick on heartthesilence, I'm just really weary of this.

[mfunk9786]

A quality level closer to the original source?

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

why do we use the word "restoration" for every new DCP of an older 35mm film? what qualifies this as a "restoration"? what was missing or lacking that has been "restored"?

not trying to pick on heartthesilence, I'm just really weary of this.

I know a few archivists and can answer this from what work I know they do. With something like this, the “restoration” means that they probably went to the original camera negative, did a new scan and did any level of digital fixes to remove specs and dust. Knowing Soderbergh, I’m sure there’s a small tweak here and there as well. If the film was available on DCP, it was probably an older scan. If it was available on film only, it was either only available in mass produced prints from the studio or from certain archives and probably have an amount of wear that would necessitate new prints being struck. The printing process also puts a certain amount of wear on any negative, so it’s also a chance to create a digital master from that print.

[tenia]

L'atelier d'images planned to release it on BD in France last year but cancelled it because of the available mediocre source.

[flyonthewall2983]

I hope Lionsgate isn't only releasing it on 4K streaming

[whaleallright]

With something like this, the “restoration” means that they probably went to the original camera negative, did a new scan and did any level of digital fixes to remove specs and dust. Knowing Soderbergh, I’m sure there’s a small tweak here and there as well.

This is a matter of opinion, I suppose, but I don't think a new scan and some routine clean-up (which is often invasive IMO) merits the term "restoration," especially when, as you suggest, certain things are likely to be changed from the film's original release. In the 1980s and 1990s, the term "restoration" seemed to be largely limited to projects where a film had been circulating in mutilated versions and was newly "restored" to something like it's original form (e.g., Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Leopard, L'Atalante...).

At risk of sounding really whiny about something that isn't really very important (in the grand scheme of things), the overuse of the term "restoration" threatens to diminish or even trivialize the intense work that went into salvaging films like Vampyr or Metropolis — and make it hard for the (ahem) "consumer" to distinguish between meritorious projects like those and the more dubious value of only being able to see a film in a "stunning new 4k DCP." (I'd rather pay to watch a 1999-vintage 35mm release print of The Limey than anything digital.)

[DarkImbecile]

A long interview with Soderbergh in Rolling Stone on The Limey’s 20th anniversary

[therewillbeblus]

Soderbergh’s annual record of media consumption for 2019